Heliotrope Pajamas Books

I’m trying my hand at fanbinding so I need a place to share my books.

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Fanbinding: Ye Heirs of Glory by Kyele

Projects 73 & 74 heirsverse series by Kyele (@timeforalongstory) Completed: August 3, 2026 Size: Folio. 310,865 words / 965 pages in three volumes Event: Fan Fiction Writer's Appreciation Day 2026 / Renegade Loves Fic(Writers)

When the FFWAD came up on my radar I knew this was the series I had to make. Nothing I say can do it justice but if you like your omegaverse AUs epically long, in a historical setting, and with enough worldbuilding that the meta needs its own independent volume, you need to give Ye Heirs of Glory a shot. I went into it mostly knowing the Musketeers from Wishbone rather than the TV show and I was immediately hooked by the characters and their world.

I made a set for the author and one for myself. It was the perfect time to use a pair of coordinating hand-marbled papers that I had been saving for literal years - primarily a bronzey gold color but with some fun pops of teal and burgundy lurking in the swirls. The set with the fan motif went to Kyele, while I kept the long line pattern for my own shelves.

I regret that I couldn't find a suitable pattern in sufficient quantities for endpapers, so they just have plain black cardstock. Spines are Verona bookcloth in Gunmetal Gray from Hollanders, with cream HTV for the titles. And this is the first time I've had to buy a brand new ream of paper for a bookbinding project - all my other books' pages have been scavenged from various local creative reuse locations.

I had a little fun with the title pages of the main volumes with the Grand Atlas font for the title and a frame found on pixabay.com that had a suitably baroque and rustic feel. IM Fell French Canon for various subheadings throughout and Garamond for the main body font. I'm especially fond of the little dagger divider next to the page numbers.

Things were a little plainer for the Concordance volume just because of the variety of material in there between all the meta, deleted scenes, and short stories.

Fanfiction writers are absolutely amazing people and I love when I have the chance to make author copies of the fics I'm binding. Kyele's stories have given me hours of enjoyment reading and rereading over the years so it was a privilege to give these stories a physical form.

Happy FFWD 2026, everyone!

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Fanbinding: of a certain age by gurlsrool

Project #72, Bind 94 of a certain age by gurlsrool Completed: June 25, 2026 Size: Octavo. 7,596 words, 88 pages.

I wasn't intending to make multiple octavos by the same author but since I stumbled upon another bind-worthy fic (another himbo Outsider POV story) a few days after I made the previous book I seem to be creating an accidental series. Octavos are a fun size to make so I'm just rolling with it.

Materials wise this was made with scrap bookboard, scrap book cloth, a printed sheet of origami paper I somehow acquired from work, and black cardstock endpapers.

Formatted in LibreOffice Writer as usual. I entertained myself by using Harlow Solid Italic for the title font (it rhymes with Cliff Marlow). Bookman Old Style for the body font since I wanted something nice and round. There were more tags than I could accommodate on the page I usually put them (right after the title page, facing the summary) so there's just some bare bones metadata and the full list is in the back with the author's notes and colophon.

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Fanbinding: Pike and Boiziau, Amateur Detectives by gurlsrool

Project #71, Bind 93? Pike and Boiziau, Amateur Detectives by gurlsrool Completed: June 13, 2026 Size: Octavo. 6,475 words, 64 pages. This fic has one of my favorite tropes (motif?) - Outsider POV people that comes to all the wrong conclusions about what the fandom's main characters are up to. It's probably the fastest turn-around time from reading the fic to binding the book that I've ever managed (about three days) but octavos come together quickly in terms of formatting and construction, plus I needed a bit of a palate cleanser after my previous over-the-top binding project.

Made with a mystery bookcloth scrap and homemade paste paper from the same batch I made for my Guide!Thomas project, with basic kraft cardstock as the endpapers.

This is the first fic I formatted after figuring out how to adjust character spacing to fix runts (those single words that end up with their own lines at the end of paragraphs) in LibreOffice Writer. It has limited utility given short lines and small typefaces used in Octavos but it did help improve the look of the text on the page. Didn't do much to help inflate the wordcount though. I was a little worried about binding such a short book but it came together pretty well in the end.

It's a fairly tame typeset in terms of appearance (Bell MT for the body font and IM Fell English for titles) but I was going for a pulp detective short story vibe so it fit.

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Fanbindings: The Sum of Its Parts (Series) by KouriArashi

Projects 55-70, Books 77-93 (or something like that) Sum of Its Parts by KouriArashi ( @gingersnapwolves ) Completed: June 4, 2026 Size: Legal Quarto. 16 works (1,199,240 words), 17 volumes (4,518 pages)

I'd say there was something about early summer that makes me want to tackle insanely large projects, but in truth I started working on formatting this series in November 2025, picked it up again in late March and even plowing through most of my lunchbreaks for the next several weeks I didn't finish the actual typesetting until late May.

Cover materials are Allure bookcloth in the color Forest from Hollanders, white MakeMarket HTV for the titles, and a 20 year old road atlas. Whenever possible I tried to match the map on the cover with the location the story was taking place, but that only panned out for four or five volumes. Still, finding enough coordinating decorative papers for 16 covers was a challenge and the maps provided a nice neutral vibe. Endpapers were a scrapbook paper pack from JoAnn's (may she rest in peace)

To try to keep things interesting enough that I didn't lose the will to live while formatting all these fics I used Problem Secretary for the titles, and changed up the splashes I used in the chapter headings and scene dividers for each book. The font used for the spots has the catchy name of WC Rhesus A Bta. Basic Liberation Serif for the body font.

While I printed and sewed the books as I finished formatting them, once that portion was done I tried to do everything sequentially to keep things consistent - trimming, cover construction, titles, casing in, etc. I learned a lot about how not to keep things organized should I ever want to undertake a project like this again, but my biggest mistake was accidentally putting the pages for the first signature of the final book, which I only discovered while taking pictures at the very end. Argh!

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Fanbinding: Guide Thomas Series by Alex51324

Project #54, Binds #75 & 76 Guide Thomas Series by @alex51324 Completed: April 19, 2026 Size: Folio. 174,531 words, 460 pages.

Summary: After being arrested for gross indecency with another male person, Thomas Barrow learns that he has a natural gift which will plunge him into a startlingly different society which exists in parallel with the one in which he has lived his life until now. He’s not entirely sure whether or not that’s a good thing…

I was so intimidated to start this project because I was certain I was going to have to break it up into two volumes based on word-count, but the three stories in the series didn't divide evenly. But with a clever use of Times New Roman for the body font (very good for packing a lot of text into a small space) and minimal chapter headers, I was able to cram it all into one book relatively easy. After two years of agonizing about the formatting once I started it was done in a couple days and most of that was playing around with the decorative fiddlybits for the title pages (art nouveau frames from pixabay.com). The title font is Shelten and the subheadings are IM Fell English.

At some point in the story Thomas has to wear a livery consisting of a bottle green jacket with gold button and he hates it. So naturally that's what I took the cover inspiration from. The outer decorative papers are from a batch of paste papers I made in the summer of 2025. They're a little less green in person. Endpapers are from a scrapbook paper pad.

When I was first started making author copies I really wanted them to match exactly with the copy I was keeping for myself but I'm really enjoying the coordinating-but-not-identical vibe these days.

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Fanbinding: Echolocation by Darksknight

Bind #(my numbering system is off) Echolocation by Darksknight Date Completed: 12/31/2025 Size: Octavo.  93 pages, 8,535 words Summary: Kirk and Spock don’t realize that they’ve bonded right away. The rest of the crew is a different story.

I was looking at my 2025 stats and realized the number of books I made during the year was going to end at an awkward number.  Clearly that meant I should try to cram another book in before the end, right?  It would have to be a small one because I had three days for both typesetting and binding.  And since I had a friend visiting soon I should make two copies because why not.  And I did actually pull it off!

Octavos are such a great way to use up scraps, in this case some paste paper I made over the summer and some cardstock I mis-measured for an earlier project.  It’s double sided paper and I used different sides for each copy for extra variation.

The typeset itself is very rough and ready, but a lot of fun to knock out quickly.  I didn’t even run it through spellcheck (partly because Chekov’s accent is written out and I didn’t feel like hitting ignore for every word in his dialogue).  I went a little overboard with the Astronomy dingbat font for the title page and scene dividers but stars were the logical choice.  Federation Classic for the titles and Bell MT as the body font, just because I hadn’t used it yet this year .

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And an Author Copy

Through the wonders of the internet the author of this fic saw the previous post and I was able to make a book for their shelf too!

I didn't have any materials left over from the original books, so I raided my scrap pile and found something that was maybe a little bit less ridiculous than the black paste paper but still felt vaguely 1960s sci-fi.

Thank you @amandagrayson for fantastic fic and the opportunity to make another octavo - they're such a fun size.

Bind # 74? Completed: 03/31/2026

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Fanbinding: 'Tis Past and So Am I

Project 53, Books 71 & 72 Tis Past & So Am I by @glass-es-sayessay Completed: March 9, 2026 Size: Quarto.  31,147 words, 193 pages.

This is a classic story in the Terror fandom and a time-loop to boot.  

The cover design came together with the purpose to make the most of a long strip of hand-marbled paper (that reminded me of pancake ice) without having to trim it.  If the books had marbled paper on both covers you could consider it an unusual version of a half-binding, but with cloth on the back cover as well it’s a weird sort of hybrid.  And in 20/20 hindsight I probably should have made the spine title smaller, but we’ll just say it adds to the general quirkiness.

I always seem to end up using Garamond for period typesets. I tried pairing it with a header in IM Fell Double Pica to mark the start of each time loop (again) but the contrast wasn’t quite as obvious in print as it was on my computer screen. Or that may have been a function of the paper the book was printed on (a marvelous find from my local creative reuse shop that I’ve been hoarding for quartos set in pre-woodpulp paper time periods).

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Fanbinding: I've Got Nothing to do Today But Smile by gyzym

Project 52, Bind 71, Binderary Book #12/end I’ve Got Nothing to Do Today But Smile by gyzym Completed: February 27, 2026 Size: Octavo.  19,867 words, 179 pages.

A classic Inception AU where Arthur is a stressed out corporate lawyer and Eames owns the coffee shop across the street from his office.

This bind was a bit of a disaster once I started printing and assembling.  The first issue I noticed was in the trimming - I don’t know what I did but there wasn’t a right angle on the textblock once I was finished.  I don’t have access to a guillotine at home and I didn’t have the time to go back out and try again (and probably didn’t have the margins to work with either) so I decided to see what I could accomplish with a straight edge and blade.  The results are serviceable but not terribly attractive.  It at least allowed me to avoid making a trapezoidal cover.

When it came time to make the cover I discovered another error.  I was making this at the same time as another octavo, and somehow had switched the endpapers I intended for each book.  It wasn’t the end of the world (at least they both matched) but the whole look turned out a bit more aggressive than I was planning.  The unexpected hazards of working on a Coffee Shop AU and a story about serial killers at the same time.

For all the issues on the outside of the book, the typeset for this text came out really well.  Times New Roman for the body text, which gets a bad rap for being very basic but excels at fitting a lot of text into a small space.  Grenzel for the title, which is another very versatile, not-at-all flashy font.  It picked up some toner haze in the printing process, which means it's probably time for a replacement cartridge.

I may remake this again in the future to try to fix some mistakes, but it will do for now.

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Fanbinding: Sour Cherry Pie Life

Project 51, Bind 70, Binderary Book #11 Sour Cherry Pie Life by FaithDaria & paburke Completed: February 27, 2026 Size: Octavo. 19,101 words, 166 pages

Throwing it back to the early days of my fic-reading timeline with a crossover between Supernatural and Criminal Minds.  

Wordcount wise this is right at the breaking point that could work as either an Octavo or a Quarto, but given the time crunch before the end of Binderary and the pile of scrap materials I wanted to use up, I went with the smaller option.  

The typeset came together quickly with Coelacanth for the body font and Chenier for the title (going for a slightly age-worn look).  My octavos usually hover around 95 words-per-page but I managed to hit 115 with this bind.  

Things went a little haywire with the aesthetics once I was actually constructing the book.  I was making this at the same time as another octavo and it wasn’t until it came time to make the covers themselves that I realised I had accidentally switched the endpapers between the books.  It was too late to do anything about it since the textblock was all glued up with spine lining and mull so I just plowed on ahead.  And so my story about a serial killer has a very cozy feel.

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Fanbinding: Left by lifeonmars

Project 50, Binds 68 & 69, and Binderary Books #9-10 Left by lifeonmars ( @marsdaydream ) Completed: February 21, 2026 Size:  Legal Quarto.  45,153 words, 231 pages

This is a fantastic magical realism story that was one of the first fics I knew I wanted to bind when I turned my attention to past Sherlock reads.  Because John Watson’s left-handedness is a major plot-point I wanted to incorporate a hand into the cover design and ended up finding the perfect icon set from the noun project.  That ended up establishing a round theme with the Type Keys font for the title and chapter numbers.  This was one of the only times where I knew what the cover would look like before I started formatting the text, allowing for a bit more coordination than usual.

Because I was using a bookcloth sampler pack from Book Craft Supply Co. for the covers the two books are not identical.  Neither are the endpapers - in this case a cozy plaid was as close as I could get to the traditional Watsonian cuddly jumper.

Formatted in LibreOffice Writer as usual, with Century Schoolbook as the body font and IM Fell Double Pica (of course) for other subheadings.

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Fanbinding: Queuing Problems by Anonymous

Projects 49, Bind 67, and Binderary Book #8 Queueing Problems (series) by Anonymous Completed: February 21, 2026 Size:  Legal Quarto.  43,590 words, 219 pages

Summary: Q rolls out upgrades to the HR Software with surprising results, Q-branch employees protect their own, and James Bond is looking for a nice night out.

I wanted to try something different from my usual 90° angles on the book cloth, and it turned out great.  But I definitely recommend using a non-directional decorative paper for the covers the first time you go that route.  Or that you remember to flip your template when cutting out the paper.  I had so much trouble at that step.

If you’re going to bind a 00Q fic, you need a font with a standout Q in its repertoire.  IM Fell Double Pica italic definitely fits the bill.  And Coelacanth for the body font has a nice swoop to the Q decender as well.  Those two are fast becoming my go-to font combination for any fandom.

This finishes off the pack of scrapbook paper I picked up from the dollar store nearly 20 years ago. Of the six 00Q books I've bound, I used that pack on four of them in all. It's nice to have a theme.

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Fanbinding: etothepii Sherlock trio

Projects 46-48, Binds 64-67, and Binderary Books #s 5,6,&7 Asteroidea (Series) by etothepii Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc (Series)  by etothepii Things you don’t tell me (Series) by etothepii Completed: February 14&15, 2026 Size:  Quarto.  (16,253 words, 136 pages) (20,213 words, 163 pages) (23,174 words, 186 pages)

A trilogy of Sherlock quartos with three stories each.  I distinctly remember reading these fics back on LiveJournal and was bracing myself to try to figure out how to harvest/format from Dreamwidth when I discovered they had been posted to AO3 as well.  Happy days.  Highly recommend, especially if you like crossovers.  The His Dark Materials fusion is delightfully odd and the addition of the Addams family to the Sherlock universe is the perfect explanation for how even keeled Watson can be. Not too much to say about the typesets.  They are meant to look as similar as possible, all using the same fonts and formatting (Bell MT for body and Poor Richard for titles/headers if you’re interested in that minutiae).  I waffled for ages about whether to do the set as quartos or octavos.  Wordcount-wise the smaller size may have made more sense, but I wanted something a little taller, if slimmer, on my shelves.

The aesthetics of the binds themselves were determined by finds at my local creative re-use store when I stumbled upon a pack of fairly plain paper from the early 2010s and a partially used pad of decorative cardstock.  The single sheets made the perfect coordinating set of endpapers for the trio.

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Fanbinding: Marketplace - Crossover Tales (Series) by BootsnBlossoms & Kryptaria

43rd/44th Project, 61st & 62nd books bound, 2026 Binderary Books #3 & #4 The Marketplace - Crossover tales by @kryptaria & @bootsnblossoms Completed: February 11, 2026 Size: Folios. [263 pages, 84,499 words] [424 pages, 135,395 words]

A two book series - first covers an alternate meeting between Q and Bond, while the second includes the events of Skyfall and ends up as a OT3 with Bond, Q, and 007.

Aesthetics chosen almost entirely because I had papers that coordinated nicely without being identical (which coincidentally also coordinated with my first 00Q book).  I’m getting a kick using sewn endpapers and finding thread in my stash to match, so these were sewn with very subtly different colors.

My typesets generally look like they were done by someone tapping away at an ancient linotype machine with how basic they are, and these two books were no exception.  Coelacanth for the body font, titles & chapter headings in Imprint MT Shadow, and Miriam Mono for subheadings - all pulled together in LibreOffice Writer.

I actually had to make the textblock for Bound By Contract twice.  Somehow when I was sewing I flipped the signatures around halfway through and didn’t notice until the spine had been glued and I was in the process of trimming.  I could salvage the endpapers but had to redo everything else.  Could have been worse though!  It’s just paper and now I have a dead textblock to practice other techniques on.

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Fanbinding: Conflicts of Interest by rageprufrock

43rd Project, 61st Bound Book, 2026 Binderary Book #2 Conflicts of Interest (Series) by @rageprufrock Date Completed: February 8, 2026 Size: Folio.  417 pages, 138,105 words.

This is one of my favorite fics despite the fact that I mostly know about Superman through cultural osmosis and minimal exposure to the actual media.  I’m not usually a kid-fic person either but this is one of the best I’ve read.

Colors chosen because they seemed to fit with the characters.  The HTV title on the spine gave me a lot of issues and after it was on I realized I’d left off a letter (watch out for plurals).  It’s a good thing this is for personal use.

This book is actually made of two longer stories and a short, so I had the chance to try a couple different styles of title pages.  I rather like the way they all worked together.  Formatted in LibreOffice Writer with Bookman Old Style as the body font and Gil Sans Extra Bold for the titles since it seemed to fit both the mid-century Superman and Y2K Smallville vibes.  I also amused myself with a million different handwriting fonts for various letters and notes passed in class.  Some people can do very elaborate typesets with amazing illustrations and embellishments.  And then there’s me spending a day and a half waffling about scene dividers before settling on a small line of stars (a grawlix in the Astronomy dingbat font - very versatile). 

Bonus:  I did another set of sewn on-endpapers for this book, which means I had to find thread to match.  I have several generations worth of sewing thread in my house inherited from various relations and I’m pretty sure the one that matched in the end belonged to my great-grandmother.

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Fanbinding: The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized by the_ragnorak

42nd Project, 60th Bound Book, Binderary 2026 Book #1 The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized by the_ragnorak (@ursavorpalis) Date Completed: 02/07/2026 Size: Legal Quarto.  310 pages, 62,168 words.

This is an Inception AU I typeset during a period of forced inactivity last summer, so I’m not sure I can fully remember details or thought processes behind some of the typographic choices I made.  Swirly scene dividers?  Sure, why not!  No press name on the title page?  Okay, I guess.  The body font is Liberation Serif, which is literally the default in LibreOffice Writer (the program I use to format things).  I do remember thinking the fact that the Pirate Bay title font doesn’t stick to a level baseline fit the chaotic vibes of the fic as Eames drags Arthur from pillar to post.  So much for decisions made while supervising my grandfather and his dementia during a hospital stay.

For the cover I wanted to branch out a little bit from my usual bookcloth-and-decorative-paper quarter bind style but I’m not yet confident enough in my HTV skills to try a full cover design.  The motif in the corner on its own took a couple tries to properly adhere.  The TV image comes from Canva and was chosen as a nod to the Gil Scott-Heron poem/song the title is referencing.  Plain kraft cardstock for the endpapers to keep with the minimal vibe, but they were sewn instead of tipped on with glue for a bit of variety.

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2026 Binderary Overview

Binderary is an event run by the Renegade Bindery’s discord server that is essentially a bookbinding intensive with online classes and workshops and everyone setting their own goals - whether that is finishing X number of books, mastering a new technique, or putting a dent in their work-in-progress pile.  This was my third year participating in Binderary and turned into the year of typesetting on the fly and sewn-in endpapers.

This year, like last year, I bound 12 books.  Unlike 2025, where I started the month with a few books already printed out and a slew of typesets in reserve, this year I got a late start because of travel and only started with four typesets prepped.  I blew through those fairly quickly and spent my lunch-breaks for the rest of the month frantically formatting fics, and made my goal just under the wire.

Binderary Stats!  12 books bound (3 folios, 4 legal quartos, 3 letter quartos, 2 octavos), making 652,621 words in 2,925 pages.  6 of the books were multi-work anthologies and 6 were single-fic volumes, with a duology included for variety.  There were 9ish fandoms represented, with 6 of the books being crossovers.  Only one author copy this time around, and in the end I’ve added around 9 inches of books to my shelf during this event. Thankfully I've acquired another bookshelf for this hobby, so I'm not in danger of running out of room from this event.

Like last year, all supplies were from stash.  I used up the last of my cobalt Allure bookcloth and finally finished a pack of scrapbook paper I bought at the dollar store about 20 years ago.  I also used up just over 100g of PVA, which made the level in my glue jar go down by nearly an inch (and that doesn’t include the methyl cellulose mix I was casing in with for the bigger books).

I'll be adding posts for the individual books in drips and drabs. It may take a while to get everything photographed with how gloomy things have been here recently. In the meantime, here's a cat.

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Rotten Work by for_autumn_i_am

Bind #59 (1st book of 2026!) Rotten Work by for_autumn_i_am Date Completed: 01/25/2026 Size: Quarto.  202 pages, 26,313 words

I love a good modern-office-setting Terror AU, so it was only a matter of time before I bound this fic.  I worked on the typesetting while on vacation last year and for some reason thought it would work as a thin legal quarto.  But as I was gathering supplies to finally bind the book I decided I absolutely had to use this one particular sheet of cardstock for endpapers, which would only work if I quickly converted it into a quarto.  And given what a nice size it turned out as that was clearly the size I should have planned for all along.  

Fairly boring type choices since I was using a borrowed laptop during the initial formatting: Garamond for the body and Castellar for the titles. The endpapers are some double-sided travel themed scrapbook paper I've had in stash for at least a decade, and the cover paper for even longer. Allure bookcloth in cobalt from Hollanders on the spine, and some pink dollar-store HTV for the title.

I also noticed that my printer was leaving a slight haze of toner on the pages, so after an unsuccessful attempt at cleaning the rollers I replaced the cartridge. Fingers crossed that fixes things for future textblocks.